Moonlighter

It's average. There's enough effort and fun factor to be had with this game but it wasn't anything special.
My Issues:
The repetitive parts of the game (shop management and the dungeon exploring) gets stale after a while. 
The achievements are nonsensical BS grind.
Glitches that forces you to quit the main menu.
The Shop Management
- is fun at first but once you do it over and over again, it loses its novelty. The problem is that it is a very tedious process and once you are done with the rush of figuring out the price of the items and gouging your customers to maximizing your profits, it gets boring. There were a few mechanics that were introduced where items can be popular or unpopular, a glass box where you can put an item and make it seem more valuable, a robber, and different types of customers. These things would've been interesting if you didn't actually have to be on site every single time, manually moving the products and confirming every purchase. I played the game and ignored almost all of these because I couldn't be bothered to give a shit. I just want to sell the goods and get out of my shop asap. And this is coming from a someone who likes to play 4X, strategy, rpg games btw.
- The shop itself has a few upgrade paths but most of them are uninteresting i.e. +10% more gold, +1 more customer, +1 more table to put your goods. You can unlock automation later in the game but it comes way to late imo. At that point I was just trying to finish the game.
The Dungeon
- is not procedurally generated.  A lot of the mobs are just counterparts of a previous mob but with a different element. 3 out of 4 elements are too identical in its properties where if inflicted will tick some damage from you/opponent.
The fights in the dungeon are a bit chaotic. The pacing is a bit confusing because the bosses are significantly weaker than some of the encounters from normal mobs. There's a lot of bs that will happen in some rooms where I feel like you don't have control and will take damage because of it. *Maybe its a skill issue on my part though.
The Good
- I like the pixel art a lot.
- The weapons are unique to each other and so the gameplay may vary.
- Difficult enough to be somewhat challenging.
- Has an interesting concept that is fun for a while. I believe this can be explored further and has a potential to be an addicting game. Perhaps in a sequel.
5/10 - I would vote for the non-existent abstain/on the fence button but since steam doesn't have one, Thumbs up for the aesthetics.

Yes, if it's on sale. Thankfully it was. I'm about halfway through and some big cracks are showing, but so are some gems.
Bad stuff first:
::Art::
There could be a lot more variety with how large the visuals are. No customization outside of which equipment you're using. No colors. The slime familiars look exactly like enemies, so I just don't use them. It's sad, because they're actually good. Overall not offensive to the eyes... but not spectacular.
::Music::
The cautious music in the dungeons is the exact opposite of how combat feels, more often than not. Slow and characterized for small, quick rooms. Structural issue. Needs more intense music with larger, fewer rooms, and then ambiance or tense chords until the next room. Since there's no meaning outside of being just another set piece, the music is mostly forgettable. It all blends together and becomes a gray backdrop. Wanderer floors had the most memorable and complimentary track.
::Exploration::
Rooms are too small. They need to be larger with procedurally generated blocks, and the view zoomed out about 20%. Rooms honestly should be taken out and just replaced with floors that generate like in Diablo.
Inventory management is rude. You only get 20 spaces, and no upgrades. Regular loot chests have more space than your backpack does. Bad.
"Curses". These rules make it so that items with different rules, even though they're the same item, cannot be stacked. They also affect other items around them, which would have been fine. There are too many curses, and "variations" of the same ones amount to an arrow pointing in a different direction that affects another surrounding item. "Pointing different" isn't enough to justify an entire new stack. This adds a level of difficulty to inventory management that has no business being there. "Send home" and "remove curse" defeat the purpose of even having them, and results in an unintended mini-game where I'm literally just moving things around. I end up staring at the inventory screen for way too long for how small it is. It's too much, and too little. It should have pointed not in eight directions, but from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, wrap to the NEXT item in your inventory. You almost always HAVE to have something be affected by a curse after you get so many items. This would make it meaningful and press engagement instead of something annoying I go out of my way to avoid. I just throw things away.
This system only needs two curses. Items are destroyed, or they disappear after taking too many hits. Less curses, more loot, and only chests have cursed items (which is currently a yes and the game is better for it). This would give them meaning, and I would care. They instead have anti-meaning, and I hate them.
Smol baeg, big CHEST. Chests are the best part of looting when done right. Even the lowly brown box has more space. We really only need gold, and boss. Could make the quality higher in gold chests without increasing quantity. Just a few things per chest, and a few chests per dungeon. Take out the garbage that monsters drop, and add weapons. The chests in this game are like... "chest". They need to be like "CHEST!" More breadth of quality. Less "looting game does not want you to loot all of this loot". Augh, I say! AUGH! Diablo fixed this with instant portals! And it was GREAT! What is this game trying to be?!
The passage of time from dungeons confuses me...
Worst for last: the Wanderer Ghost. I call him GB, for Glorified Booger. He instantly kills. He shows up halfway through a floor just because the rooms on a floor are too numerous and therefore take too long. Fuck you for playing. He deliberately attacks and destroys loot, and entire CHESTs, in a single hit. This thing is a brick wall you can run into if you "spend too long on one floor", or take a certain book and leave nothing in the book's place... which would have been fine without the Booger Timer. It's the timer that comes along to tell me I'm "playing wrong", as if I'm going to forget to leave the dungeon. Maybe I'm trying to find an item for a special request. I'm in it. The challenge is already at hand because the item requested is only in gold CHESTs or boss rooms. "Whatever," says the dev. "Fuck you so much a-for to playing a-my game-a," says Booger Mario. Glorified Booger Death is the name of my next song. Technically, it's easy to get away from... but it's also easy to get invested in trying to find the right quantity of an item for special orders, or equipment. I died, time moved forward, and I was forced to "fail" the order. "Floor too big, OOPS." I want to forget how that felt. I want to forget how something in this game made me feel. Bad game. That's a very bad game. No.
It's not the booger. It's WHY the booger.
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Now some good stuff! :D
::Combat::
Smooth, mostly. It's easy to figure out what weapon combo you want early in the game. I went with a spear for range, and a bow for the homing secondary shot. The shield works very well, but the shortsword can't beat 2 1/2 tiles of range. There's also a slower 2-handed sword, or gloves for punching. I don't really get the gloves.... same speed as the short sword, shorter range, same number of hits, and same damage. Meh. The dodge is extremely effective, almost to the point of being broken, and it also doubles as a long-jump that can clear gaps two tiles wide. I wouldn't change it though, because many enemy attacks and floor hazards will keep you paying very close attention to where you go, and when you move. Combat feels like COMBAT! I mean, unless you wanna play as a tank or something, but that's just boring. (:P) I will decide how to challenge myself!
(:L) I will not punish myself with my dad's belt.
I can easily say that this is where the game's strongest qualities come forward, which is disappointing only for how wide the gap is from everything else.
::Upgrading!::
This should have been where the bulk of the game's reward came from. I'm putting it here for what it could have been.
If it's so hard to run a mercantile village, the kingdom realistically would have an inflated economy. The prices, despite being paid for with gold coins, don't seem to add up by comparison. Another "gold is basically cheese" economy. One extra zero on upgrades, equipment, and other merchants, but I can sell things for a little more, OR I can haul more loot from dungeons.... HMMMMMMMM. It surprised me how early I was able to add both the potion/enchanter, and the blacksmith. Just.... y'know, remove the timer ghost >_>........ :D and make everything more expensive! More monetary distance between low and high quality loot! Still, I guess it is technically balanced for how the finished product turned out so that it isn't too much to ask for.
::FAMILIARS!!!::
Aside from the ones that look exactly like certain tiny enemies as I previously stated fourteen chapters ago, this is yet another way the game's combat system goes above and beyond to give players MORE REASONS TO WANT TO STAY INSIDE DUNGEONS. Because combat is THE MOST FUN PART OF THE GAME. ESPECIALLY WITH FAMILIARS!!!! AAUUGHGHHAAAAHGAAAAA~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These are screams of joy. These are screams of excitement, and satisfaction. Total, absolutely SFW, platonic satisfaction. The debuffs they enchant to our weapons. The cute. The flying one that fly to enemy, an attack gud, an fast, an grab item to bring me. Drone is best boi. Korok pokemon leaf is second best from what I've found so far. I want to high-five him because it would hurt less than the spinning drone.
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It's a dungeon looter that doesn't want you to loot, and a town simulator where almost nobody has any individual personality. But you'll have fun trying to have fun, I guess.
This review will now abruptly en

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

You can sleep through an entire week without consequences.

managing a tiny little shop during the day & fighting monsters with my broom during the night = happiness

That was fun! Great pixel graphics with nice combat and a satisfying game loop. I loved opening my shop just as much as I did going into the dungeons to stock it up. I would have been content with this at full price, but at the current sale of 3 bucks, everyone should give it a try!

I was apprehensive to try Moonlighter at first because I'm not a fan of management simulators, and I was afraid the dungeons would be too difficult to me, but it very quickly became my comfort game and a current favorite!
While it's by no means the most difficult game out there, you can still get your ass handed to you when you unlock a new level or enter a new dungeon and barge in headfirst, full of hubris.
The basic premise is rather simple, but the game manages to go about its own mystery in a charming and compelling way. As you make your way through the dungeons, you learn bits and pieces of lore through discovered notes of fallen or missing adventurers, or historic writings left by now (presumably) extinct cultures. All the breadcrumbs lead towards the final, fifth dungeon, without spelling out what you might find there.
The management mechanics are, in my opinion, pretty lightweight and unique. The permantnly restricted inventory slot when you're out adventuring poses an interesting challenge for players, forcing them to strategize and choose which items to keep. This is further compounded as items become more frequently "cursed" as you advance through the dungeon, which affects how you can arrange and carry them. However, while they're called curses, some of them are actually helpful and can mitigate or completely remove the hamful effects of others! There are a few other fun mechanics that allow the player to turn items into gold to free up inventory space, open a portal in a chosen spot, or transport back to town and out of danger in exchange for money. With some caution, the player can easily avoid being defeated and losing their items.
What I found interesting about managing Will's shop Moonlighter was that the player only really gets basic guidelines for the prices, and the rest is up to them to figure out based on customers' reactions and experience. It was a little confusing at first, but it's easy to catch on and figure out approximate values. Similarly, its calendar, merchant's notebook and wishlist system was a little confusing at first, but ultimately easy to understand and very helpful for keeping track of items and quests. There is no micomanagement in the game and the crafting system isn't super expansive either, so those who enjoy the grind of those aspects might find themselves disappointed. For me this was a plus because it keeps things more fast paced and less overwhelming, while still allowing enough creativity and fun with its established lore & mechanics.
Moonlighter is, of course, repetitive/cyclical as every game in its genre, but it still manages to remain fresh in its gameplay and charming in its mystery. If you're looking for a game that will make you grind endlessly, make you read every item to understand the lore, or portray indepth emotional struggles, this game isn't for you. But if you'd prefer something more casual and fun that still manages to pack a punch, stylistically beautiful and unique in the way it connects its lore and gameplay, then I'd warmly recommend you give Moonlighter a shot. :)